PR Warrior Trevor Young joins James and Sarah to discuss whether it ever OK to publish your content on someone else’s platform, like Medium or LinkedIn Pulse. What are the risks of “building on rented land”? Is it always better to publish on media you actually own, like a blog?

 

Here are some key take-outs:

  • There’s a shift towards publishing where the audience is. If your audience is on Facebook, why not publish there? It’s a compelling argument. But, is it dangerous putting all your eggs in one basket? What if they change the rules? Some platforms have already disappeared.
  • It all comes down to capacity. Do you have time to support multiple platforms?

“My concern for content marketers is that all of these platforms can become a distraction when you should really be concentrating on building your own audience.” — Sarah

 

  • A lot of big names have gone to Medium. People like it because it’s a really clean site. It has good usability features and no advertising — and that’s the thing: How does that business model work? No wonder Medium is laying-off staff. Putting all your content on there alone is a real risk.
  • You can revive content you’ve created and published on your own site by re-publishing it on another platform.

“I might do a blog post on PR Warrior and then some months later if it’s still an evergreen article I’ll put it on LinkedIn and maybe get an extra 3000 or 4000 hits.” — Trevor Young

 

  • Keep to your strategy and your goals. Make sure you’re serving your audience. Publishing on these sites might help you get extra reach, but does that match your goals and how does it fit with your strategy?

“Most of us are trying to get people onto a subscriber list so we can continue the conversation with them. But that’s not everyone’s goal. Some people want to build their profile as quickly as possible. In that case maybe the quickest way is to go to where the people are and build it that way.” — Trevor Young

 

Here are the links you might need

  • You can find Trevor here. 

 

On My Desk

 

Like what you’ve heard?

Last week the team asked whether it was ever OK to get political with your marketing (as they tore apart the Super Bowl ads).

 

Recently they discussed influencer marketing and whether deals should be disclosed.

 

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